


feel the tide turning

by tiffanyachings



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 04:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11775429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiffanyachings/pseuds/tiffanyachings
Summary: She misses Dwight.And of course it's more than his skill as a physician Caroline longs for - it's his laugh when she teases him, and the sensation of his lips on hers and above all, perhaps, the way he knows her like no one else, not in the biblical sense (well, not only) but in the simple way he seesher,even when she's thrown on ten different mantles of flippancy and sarcasm - but she has become rather skilled at pushing those thoughts away from her mind and keeping it occupied with matters of her uncle's ill health instead.Something that's right before her eyes. Something she can at leasttryto alleviate.





	feel the tide turning

**Author's Note:**

> written for fuckyeahdwightcaroline's fanwork week on tumblr.  
> except for a few nods to show!canon, this is based on the books which means Uncle Ray is still taking his time dying but Caroline already knows that Dwight is being held as a POW by the Frenchies.  
> my warmest regards to the thesaurus, dict.cc and above all, Megan (dismiss-your-fearsx) for beta-reading!

If she doesn't keep busy, Caroline thinks, she shall go quite mad with worry.

Luckily for her, there's much to do.

Myners has begun to insist on discussing matters of the estate only in her presence. She knows he's trying to school her: In a few months, perhaps even weeks, she’ll be mistress of Killewarren.

It can only be a matter of time until Ray Penvenen departs this world.

Dr Behenna denies that, of course. In the past few months, he has become Killewarren's most frequent visitor, blustering into her uncle’s bedroom multiple times a week with an air of authority that has the servants running for bowls and blankets before he has even said a word.

He's so different from Dwight, Caroline thinks as he packs away his instruments and turns around to give her yet another lecture on how Master Penvenen will come around again in no time if only she follows his prescribed treatment and seizes to ask so many questions.

“The workings of the human body,” he explains in his booming, self-important voice, “are too complex to be explained to the unschooled man or woman.”

There is no trace of the kindness and understanding Dwight used to bring with him, only the demand of a respect and a trust he hasn't yet rightfully earned.

She misses Dwight.

And of course it's more than his skill as a physician Caroline longs for - it's his laugh when she teases him, and the sensation of his lips on hers and above all, perhaps, the way he knows her like no one else, not in the biblical sense (well, not only) but in the simple way he sees _her_ , even when she's thrown on ten different mantles of flippancy and sarcasm - but she has become rather skilled at pushing those thoughts away from her mind and keeping it occupied with matters of her uncle's ill health instead.

Something that's right before her eyes. Something she can at least _try_ to alleviate.

  


As long as she can find a task to direct her energies into, Caroline keeps up well.

It's only in the long hours spent sitting by her uncle's bedside or at night, alone in her room, that the cold, paralyzing fear creeps up on her and she can no longer drown out the whispering at the back of her mind reminding her that somewhere across the Channel, Dwight is at the absolute mercy of a few French guards, detained in a prison camp from which he might never return to her.

And then her mind wanders and wonders: If he has sufficient blankets to keep him warm in this bitter weather. If they feed him enough. If he's still alive or if they have already buried his body in an unnamed shallow grave.

What she should do in that event, Caroline refuses to even think about. Dwight _must_ come home. She couldn't bear to lose both of the people she holds dearest in such a short time.

Because years of medical training and experience or not, deep down she knows Behenna cannot help her uncle. No one can. He's dying and all her bustling about is but a distraction when really, there is nothing she can do apart from keeping him company as he grows weaker and weaker before her eyes, and she’s tired of it, so tired of spoon-feeding this man who used to be so full of vigour...

Every once in a while he has cruel spells of slight improvements, and for a few days Caroline allows herself to hope that maybe, against all odds, her old guardian has still enough life in him to live a more few years, but they never last too long and leave her more forlorn each time.

Perhaps it would be a kindness to ignore Dwight’s prescriptions and let him drink as much canary as it pleases him so that he may enjoy his last few weeks in this world, but she can't quite bring herself to do it.

Selfishness holds her back. She doesn't want to lose him, not yet.

After all, he's the only close family she has left.

(Except for Dwight, perhaps, only that her efforts to acquire information about his whereabouts have made Caroline painfully aware that he's not, not really.

He's everything to her.

But as long as she can't name him her husband, or her brother, or her third cousin once removed, 'everything' is not enough and it pains her. It pains her to know that in the eyes of the law, their love counts for nothing at all.)

  


Sometimes, when it seems like if the pungent stench of sickness and potions in Uncle Ray’s bedroom won't suffocate her, she'll drown in her anxiety, Caroline takes a walk to the cliffside to look out at the sea.

It does good to be have a place where she can openly give in to her sorrows, a place where she can be alone with her aching heart and the sound of crashing waves. If the occasional tear runs down her cheek now and then she blames it on the sharp salty breeze burning her eyes.

Occasionally, Horace accompanies her.

That's his mistress' will, of course, not his own. Horace has never felt a desire to move his plump body any more than absolutely necessary, but Caroline likes to think it would please Dwight to see her make the small pug put his short legs to good use.

 _Plenty of running and jumping_ , she hears him say, _dogs do not need to be carried._ The memory is so vivid she can almost still feel a slight tingle when she thinks of him wetting his finger before writing down the recipe.

Horace doesn't run, and he certainly refuses to jump, but a few treats persuade him to trot along next to her.

  


She has kept that recipe. _Black cherry water, paragorium and Theban opium._

She has kept his letters as well, neatly folded and hidden away in a small chest.

Just like Dwight has kept all of hers.

Caroline found them when she helped the Poldarks clean out his small cottage and move his trunks to Nampara for safety: a small bundle tied together with a piece of string.

She has reread them all: her insistent requests to examine her throat, the shoal of long love letters she secretly sent him from Oxford...and then, at the bottom, five letters addressed to Miss Caroline Penvenen, Hatton Garden, London, filled with jumbled explanations and reassurances of his love and anguished pleas for her forgiveness.

The growing desperation is still seeping through his words and increasingly scrawly handwriting and with every time Caroline rereads them, it becomes more unfathomable to her why she didn’t immediately grab Horace to take the next carriage back to Cornwall, back to Dwight.

And yet, underneath those five letters, there's her note.

_Requesting you to never write to me again._

Caroline's rational side assures her there was no way of knowing he'd sign that cursed contract and bind himself to the Navy because he couldn't bear her absence, but nevertheless, she feels it weighing on her conscience like a rock. If only she’d listened to her heart instead of pride and hurt and anger...

More than once she has thought about burning this little note that has brought about so much unhappiness, but she won't.

No, she'll keep it - as a reminder of her mistakes, of what she needs to set right.

Her uncle she cannot save. But for Dwight, perhaps all is not lost.

She'll write to the Admiralty. She'll go to London as soon as she can to see if she can arrange a prisoner exchange. She will bring him back and if it takes her swimming across the English Channel and dragging him out of that damned prison herself, so be it.

Caroline takes a deep breath of salty air, pulls her cloak tight and turns to head home.

There's much to do.


End file.
